by Allison Gray, USA TODAY, USA TODAY

by Allison Gray, USA TODAY, USA TODAY

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in a rebel-held area of eastern Ukraine. Flight 17, carrying 283 passengers and 15 crew members, crashed after being hit by what U.S. officials suspect was a surface-to-air missile launched from an area controlled by Russian-backed separatists.

MARCH 8, 2014

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared early in the morning on March 8, 2014, less than an hour after takeoff. The plane was traveling from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to Beijing. It disappeared over the Indian Ocean with 239 passengers and crew members on board. Though the search continues for the missing plane, no confirmed debris or crash site has been found.

JUNE 1, 2009

Air France Flight 447 went down during a flight from Brazil to Paris on June 1, 2009, resulting in the deaths of all 216 passengers and 12 crewmembers. Recovery efforts were hampered because the plane went down on a deep section of the Atlantic Ocean. The wreckage and the black boxes from the plane were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011.

NOV. 12, 2001

Just two months after 9/11, American Airlines Flight 587, on its way to the Dominican Republic, crashed in Queens, N.Y., just after taking off from John F. Kennedy International airport, killing all 260 people onboard and five people on the ground. The NTSB concluded that the cause of the crash was overuse of the rudder mechanism.

OCT. 31, 1999

On Oct. 31, 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 from Los Angeles to Cairo crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 217 people onboard. An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board found that the Egyptian pilot brought the plane down intentionally. However, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Agency determined that the plane crashed because of to a mechanical failure.

SEPT. 2, 1998

On Sept. 2, 1998, all 229 people aboard Swissair Flight 111 died when the plane, flying from New York to Switzerland, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Halifax, Canada. The captain was unable to tame a fire that started above the ceiling in the cockpit and eventually lost control of the plane amid the spreading fire and smoke.

MARCH 27, 1977

The largest commercial air disaster happened on March 27, 1977, off the coast of West Africa on the island of Tenerife, killing 583 people. Two Boeing 747 jumbo jets, one owned by KLM and the other by Pan Am, collided in thick fog on the runway at Los Rodeos airport.